This invention relates to a system for removing water, including free and emulsified water and numerous contaminants, from hydrocarbon fuels and is particularly designed for use with personal, household, consumer and domestic devices.
This invention relates to the invention described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,888,399. U.S. Pat. No. 5,888,399 is herein incorporated by reference.
Repair shop surveys indicate that one source of the most significant repair and maintenance problems for personal, domestic, household and consumer device engines, ranging from yachts to lawn mowers, is the contamination of the device""s fuel system by water. One aspect of this invention involves appreciating the significance of the scale of repair and maintenance problems caused by water in the fuel system in personal, domestic, consumer and household devices.
By a variety of means, water collects in fuel storage tanks. Water collects in both the fuel tank of the device and separate storage tanks.
One object of this invention is to provide simple, practical systems for use by consumers and home owners to significantly remove free water, emulsified water and numerous contaminants from fuel prior to its injection into the engines of personal, domestic, household and consumer devices.
Super-absorbent, hydrophilic, oleophobic substances are known. These super absorbers are capable of removing free water as well as emulsified water and numerous contaminants from hydrocarbons. Generally, the super-absorbent substances themselves first subsist in a granular form. They may be further ground to a powder. Super-absorbent substances may be pressed, heated or combined, usually with other polymers, in some fashion into a substrate, as well as possibly laminated onto a substrate or media such as filter paper. Generally, the super-absorbent substances require binding with some medium or media in order to form practically useful filters. xe2x80x9cBindingxe2x80x9d could include simply being enclosed in a filter bag. Such enclosure means is intended to be regarded herein as an alternative way of binding to a medium.
Given a suitably bound, super-absorbent, hydrophilic, oleophobic substance into a filter, a support body or means is used to locate and hold the filter strategically in a fuel tank or a fuel conduit used for personal, household, consumer and domestic devices. For instance, a porous support body may hold a filter across a conduit such that flow of fluid through the conduit is funneled through the filter. Alternatively, a support body might carry a filter to a bottom of a hydrocarbon storage tank where it could absorb free water that had dropped out of emulsified fuel to the bottom of the tank during periods of storage of fuel. If free water in fuel is not removed, free water may become emulsified due to movements (even vibrations). For another instance, a support body might adjustably hold the filter vertically in the storage-tank, thereby providing filter portions that occupy several horizontal levels, including a lower free-water level and higher emulsified-water levels. A tank in which a filter is inserted could be either a storage tank or a tank of a device itself.
The support body for the filter could be built, in whole or in part, into the conduit or into the tank. Alternatively, the support body could be partially or totally removable from a conduit or a tank. The support body could be partially or totally attachable to the filter. The support body and the filter could be designed to be reused or discarded, in whole or in part.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,618,388 to Ayers discloses a filter and filter media for use in a filter. The type of filter disclosed in the patent is an industrial-scale filter. PetroClear filters, which are a technological product of Champion Laboratories, Inc., are one such type of industrial filters.
Womack, U.S. Pat. No. 2,266,350, also discloses a water filter and filter media for use with fuels. However, Womack does not teach super-absorbent, hydrophilic, oleophobic filters and Womack does not teach. binding a filter securely to a medium.